In the packaging of certain types of foods, such as snack foods including candies, potato chips, cookies and the like, it is common practice to employ a multi-layer film. Polypropylene films are widely used in the packaging industry due to their superior physical properties, such as, transparency, stiffness, moisture barrier characteristics and others. Despite these highly desirable properties, unmodified polypropylene film has the disadvantageous property of having a high inherent coefficient of friction and film-to-film destructive blocking on storage. This high film-to-film coefficient of friction makes polypropylene films difficult to be successfully employed in automatic packaging equipment in their unmodified form.
Coefficient of friction characteristics of polypropylene and other thermoplastic films are beneficially modified by the inclusion in the polymer of slip agents. Most of these slip agents are migratory, such as polydiallyl siloxane or fatty amides, such as, erucamide and oleamide. Although they do reduce the coefficient of friction, their effectiveness depends upon the ability to migrate to the surface of the film. The development of the desired low coefficient of friction value is strongly dependent upon the type and amounts of amides, and time and temperature aging effects. Even the heat history of the film while in storage and shipping and during subsequent converter processes, significantly affects the coefficient of friction. In addition, the presence of these types of fatty acid amides on the film surface results in visible adverse appearance effects, manifested by an increase in haze, a decrease in gloss and the presence of streals. These materials also adversely effect the wettability and adhesion of solvent and water-based inks, coatings and adhesives.
To overcome the problems associated with migratory slip agents, non-migratory systems were developed. A material described to be a non-migratory slip agent is a particulate crosslinked hydrocarbyl-substituted polysiloxane which is available worldwide from Toshiba Silicone Co., Ltd. and in the United States from General Electric Co. And marketed under the name TOSPEARL
In PCT US94/14280 a film structure containing a non-migratory particulate crosslinked hydrocarbyl-substituted polysiloxane slip agent is described. The film structure includes at least one layer of an olefin homo-, co- or terpolymer having a surface-treated external surface which is printable, sealable and machinable and as combined slip agent and antiblock a non-migratory particulate crosslinked hydrocarbyl-substituted polysiloxane, and/or liquid polydimethyl siloxane. Example 7 provides a polypropylene core layer having (a) an outer skin layer of high density polyethylene containing particulate crosslinked polymonoalkylsiloxane as non-migratory combined antiblock and slip agent and low density polyethylene. On the other side of the core layer is (c) an outer layer resin which also contains the non-migratory combined antiblock and slip agent. The film is flame treated on one side to improve the wettability and printability and lamination strengths. The size of the particulate in terms of average diameter is about 4.5.mu. and the target skin thickness of the (a) layer is three gauge units and four gauge units for the (c) layer so the ratio of particle size in terms of average diameter to skin thickness is about 5.9 for the three gauge skin layer and about 4.42 for the four gauge skin layer. The film is described as having good coefficient of friction, on the treated side, and marginal machinability.
Additional descriptions of olefinic polymer films in which particulate siloxane resins are employed to provide improved films will be found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,966,933; 4,769,418; 4,652,618; and 4,594,134.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,966,933 describes a propylene polymer film containing 100 parts by weight of a propylene polymer, 0.01 to 0.5 parts by weight of a fine powder of a crosslinked silicone resin and 0.3 to 3.0 parts by weight of a hydroxy-fatty acid glyceride. In column 3, lines 6-20, the provided amounts of fine powder of silicone resin and hydroxy-fatty acid glyceride in the metallization layer are required for adaptability to vacuum deposition. Example 3 provides a two-layer coextruded film in which the fine powder of crosslinked silicone resin is compounded with polypropylene homopolymer to form a metallization layer (B) and the fine powder of crosslinked silicone resin is compounded with an ethylene/propylene/butene-1 copolymer to form a skin layer (a). The ratio of reported particle size to skin thickness is about 0.143 for skin layer (B) and about 1.29 for skin layer (A).